Art

Sunday, 30 April 2017

A poem from Rumi, resonating on multiple levels in this season of renewal and rebirth. You just can't go wrong with Rumi.

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they're a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

The act of not-writing a poem/script/song, in this instance, is a clever means of doing just that. Evocative. Mysterious. My prayers and blessings to you and yours. Not sure which of the two is more needed, so covering all bases.

Monday, 14 November 2016

Soulful, wise, and thoughtful lyrics from the amazing Rosanne Cash. Let us not forget the incredible and largely unknowable machinations and/or randomness born of this universe of multiple trillions of 100 million star galaxies. #healingpresencetodayjoypeacebeautylove

Saturday, 28 March 2015

As an eleven year old in New England, I read Colin Fletcher's The Complete Walker and dreamed of wandering the wide open spaces of the west as he did. I set off on excursions into rainy and dense local woods that are littered about Massachusetts's small cities and small towns. Wide open, big sky spaces were few. Off-trail travel involved bushwhacking, swamps, and poison ivy. You'd get to the top of a peak (well, really a glorified hill but we're talking imagination here) and... you'd still be in a forest. These places are wild in their own ways and do have their share of wonder and charm. But I wanted to go big and I would eventually find my way to the west years later. But even within the claustrophobic confines of these eastern forests, I still to happened upon small sanctuaries of inspiration, quiet, and solitude.

From The Boy Who Spoke to the Earth

Around the same time, I began my life a distance runner, inspired to run marathons. My runs took me far and wide on the backroads where I lived. I sought out the wildest places possible. And, during the process of that training, I discovered the power of the journey. It's no accident that I was reading Homer's Odyssey at this time; I couldn't avoid its influence. Completing a marathon was a joyful achievement for me. And the actual journey of running the marathon was also joyful. Yet, most significantly, the months of training that lead up to the journey delivered the most joy and reward of all. All those hours on the road in those woods, each mile with a myriad of moments—from here is where the greatest pleasure arose.

Inspired by The Boy Who Spoke to the Earth, author Chris Burkhard/illustrator David McClellan, Dreamling Books.

Friday, 16 January 2015

AKA, "What the Hell IS the Dirtbag Dad" anyway. I've long promised this and it's still there, ruminating and developing in the recesses of my mind. To be honest, the work with my kids and family are very consuming. Exhausting, exasperating, but also rewarding all at the same time.

I'm in a transitional time now, with Colin and his Tourette's as I've written about before. But also in work too. My long time, super-flexibile, super-kind and understanding part-time work is coming to a natural end. It's still here and I value every minute of it. But I've also wanted to change/evolve it for sometime too. Too many late nights and super-early mornings. I need sleep and I do get it, but the rhythm of the day (or lack of it) causes me to have unwanted frustration. I am learning to better deal with that. I try to laugh it off now instead of getting steamed. It always works out anyway. And I always find a way.

And my wife Jennifer's work has changed dramatically too, with a layoff that was actually much desired and the freedom of a full year to get things back on the track she wants to be on. She is very good at embracing that gift. Much more than I would, but she is a great example and I am learning.

My vision is this: I want to continue to take care of my kids and work at a job that allows me the flexibility so I can work from home on my own time. I want to continue to lead the healthy and active lifestyle that I have developed over decades. I want to feel comfortable financially. I want this work to be something in which I believe and for which I can have passion. I'm trending toward the outdoor products and/or services business at this point. If I can just find time to get off my ass. Is this really too much to ask? :-)

I have all the traditional dirtbags out there as inspiration. Brendan Leonard (semi-rad.com), Kris Kalous (enormocast.com), and Fitz Cahall (dirtbagdiaries.com) amongst the bloggers and podcasters in this realm. And the athletes who are putting it out there and creating, being, doing. Jeremy Collins (jercollins.com) is especially aspirational for me. Beautful work and life balance (at least from my perspective!) mixed with a poetic vision and gift.

Thursday, 05 September 2013

I've never had any desire to attend Burning Man (which just de-playa-ed around Labor Day). The following has been making the rounds (this means I didn't create it and I don't know to whom to attribute it). Captures my sentiments in a funny and spot-on way:

Not going to Burning Man?

Here's how to enjoy Burning Man from the comfort of your own home...

Pay an escort of your preference to not bathe for five days, cover themselves in glitter, dust, and sunscreen, wear a skanky neon wig, dance naked, then say they have a lover back home at the end of the night.

Tear down your house. Put it in a truck. Drive 10 hours in any direction. Put the house back together.

Invite everyone you meet to come over and party. When they leave, follow them back to their homes, drink all their booze, and break things.

Stack all your fans in one corner of the living room. Put on your most fabulous outfit. Turn the fans on full blast. Dump a vacuum cleaner bag in front of them.

Buy a new set of expensive camping gear. Break it.

Lean back in a chair until that point where you're just about to fall over, but you catch yourself at the last moment. Hold that position for 9 hours.

Only use the toilet in a house that is at least 3 blocks away. Drain all the water from the toilet. Only flush it every 3 days.

Hide all the toilet paper.

Set your house thermostat so it's 50 degrees for the first hour of sleep and 100 degrees the rest of the night.

Before eating any food, drop it in a sandbox and lick a battery.

Spend thousands of dollars and several months of your life building a deeply personal art work. Hide it in a funhouse on the edge of the city. Hire people to come by and alternate saying "I love it" and "dude, this sucks". Then burn it.

Set up a DJ system downwind of a three alarm fire. Play a short loop of drum'n'bass until the embers are cold.

Make a list of all the things you'll do different next year. Never look at it.

Have a 3 a.m. soul baring conversation with a drag nun in platforms, a crocodile and Bugs Bunny. Be unable to tell if you're hallucinating.

Lust after Bugs Bunny.

Cut, burn, electrocute, bruise, and sunburn various parts of your body. Forget how you did it. Don't go to a doctor.

"Downsize" last year's camp by adding two geodesic domes, a new soundsystem, art car, and 20 newbies.

Don't sleep for 5 days. Take a wide variety of hallucinogenic/emotion altering drugs. Pick a fight with your boyfriend/girlfriend, or both.

Spend a whole year rummaging through thrift stores for the perfect, most outrageous costume. Forget to pack it.

Shop at Wal-mart, Cost-Co, and Home Depot until your car is completelypacked with stuff. Tell everyone that you're going to a "Leave-No-Trace" event. Empty your car into a dumpster.

Listen to music you hate for 168 hours straight, or until you think you are going to scream. Scream. Realize you'll love the music for the rest of your life.

Spend 5 months planning a "theme camp" like it's the invasion of Normandy. Spend Monday-Wednesday building the camp. Spend Thurs-Sunday nowhere near camp because you're sick of it or can't find it.

Walk around your neighborhood and knock on doors until someone offers you cocktails and dinner.

Bust your ass for a "community." See all the attention get focused on the drama queen crybaby.

Get so drunk you can't recognize your own house. Walk slowly around the block for 5 hours.

Tell your boss you aren't coming to work this week but he should "gift" you a paycheck anyway. When he refuses accuse him of not loving the "community".

Search alleys until you find a couch so unbelievably tacky and nasty filthy that a state college frat house wouldn't want it. Take a nap on the couch and sleep like you are king of the world.

Ask your most annoying neighbor to interrupt your fun several times a day with third hand gossip about every horrible thing that's happened in the last 24 hours. Have them wear khaki.

Go to a museum. Find one of Salvador Dali's more disturbing, but beautiful paintings. Climb inside it.

Sunday, 04 August 2013

The whole gang was wandering around downtown Laguna Beach one night last week. It happened to be the Art Walk that night, so there was a lively, hopping scene. Lots of galleries that normally would have been closed at that time of day were open.

There's a gallery there that has a permanent display of some of the artwork of Theodor Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss). We'd passed that place many a time, stopping to admire his work from the outside, but never venturing in.

This time we did. The free Oreos might have had something to do with this.

And we stumbled upon the following poem. It struck a chord within all of us:

A Prayer for a Child—Theodor Geisel

From here on earth,From my small placeI ask of YouWay out in space:Please tell all menIn every landWhat You and IBoth understand . . .

Please tell all menThat Peace is Good.That’s allThat need be understoodIn every worldIn Your great sky.

"Always changing, never twice the same..." (Robert Irwin). One of the beautiful elements of this world. I try to remember it every day. The dirtbagdad is always evolving. Sometime the movement is a few steps back, but in the long view, it's always forward.